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Flickr Finally Gets a Needed, Fattening Update!

Since buying Flickr 8 years ago, Yahoo hasn’t done a great deal with it. But that’s all about to change, with their announcement on Monday at a press event that they were going to make it bigger and shinier, with a terabyte of storage space.

New Flickr will have a more photo-filled interface, and each user will have a free terabyte of storage space – allowing users to upload pictures at their original resolution.

The event in Manhattan follows Yahoo’s announcement earlier in the day that they are buying Tumblr for the massive sum of US$1.1 billion.

Although Flickr still has something in the region of 89 million users, it has found it has had increasingly to share its market with Instagram, Hipstamatic, Pinterest, and other social media outlets.

Flickr will feature an “Activity Feed”, showing the latest photos uploaded by their friends. The layout will emphasise images, rather than the largely text-based format Flickr currently employs. Yahoo Senior Vice President, Adam Cahan, acknowledged this when he said, “Flickr had become about words, little images, blue links. It was not about the photo anymore.”

In addition, users will be able to upload high-res profile pictures, add cover photos etc – a la Facebook, Twitter and the like.

Cahan went on further to say, “We want all of your images,” The new improved Flickr gives a storage capacity 70 times greater than other sites, and could store 537,731 photos in “full quality.” In a cheeky dig at Google, who have been very open as to their plans for offering photo storage, Yahoo referred to the 15GB of storage space “other” companies offer.

CEO of Yahoo, Marissa Meyer, said, “We’re thrilled to take Flickr even further with a beautiful, completely re-imagined experience that puts photos front and centre. When it comes to photography, technology and its limits shouldn’t hinder the experience.

“Flickr’s stunning new desktop design puts photos at the heart of the experience. Built around a new photostream that gives you a vivid and endlessly scrolling gallery, it’s easy to see what your friends are posting and what they’re saying about your photos. And because Flickr has always been about exploring photographs from users around the world, we’ve also created a new slideshow that displays the most spectacular Flickr photos in gorgeous full-screen.”

The re-vamp also includes a new version of the Flickr app for Android phones and tablets, enabling them to be viewed at full resolution on all major phones and tablets.